Affordable Tesla sedan coming thanks to ‘gigafactories’

Let’s be real, here; you’re probably not driving a Tesla. You might want to slip into the electric car fr your daily commute, but you aren’t. A big part of that is probably expense, as the $70,000+ price tag of a Tesla Model S is likely out of reach. An upcoming model, though — you might be able to afford that one.

Speaking to Autocar, Tesla’s Vice President of Engineering Chris Porritt says they’ll lower cost on their next sedan model. The Model E, which will come after Tesla is done tweaking their Model X SUV, is likely going to find itself a bit of a departure from what we’ve come to expect. It’s also going to be quite a bit cheaper, which we expected would happen after Tesla started their initiative to build massive battery factories.

“Building the Gigafactory will help make battery manufacturing more cost-effective” Porritt said, adding that the Model E wouldn’t simply be a smaller version of the Model S. “I expect there will be very little carry-over. We’ve got to be cost-effective. We can’t use aluminum for all the [small car’s] components.”

That means we can expect something along the lines of steel to hold the car up, which could have an impact on range. There wasn’t a timeline for release of the Model E, but many believe it will hit in 2015 — at least in the test phase. The Model X is shipping in the Fall of next year, and it depends on just how quick those gigafactories get up to speed before production on a cost-effective Model E can begin.